Roadmap for Repealing Obamacare

As a member of the Conservative Action Project, ACRU CEO Susan Carleson and leaders of 32 other organizations representing a broad cross section of the conservative movement are united on repealing Obamacare and make the following recommendations:

REPEALING OBAMACARE & PROTECTING COURT VICTORIES

RE: House and Senate Leaders should seize the momentum from the Florida decision declaring Obamacare unconstitutional and retool their strategy. Push hard for total repeal; defund its implementation, but DO NOT try partial repeal. Conservatives have lots of good ideas that can be advanced on their own, rather than attempting to make modifications to Obamacare.

ISSUE-IN-BRIEF: Opponents of government run health care should continue their courageous efforts against Obamacare. The Florida court victory changes the landscape, and so it is necessary to revise their Obamacare strategy. Since the court has declared the entire legislation as constitutionally flawed, efforts to “fix” or “partially repeal” the law would harm the litigation and set back efforts to end Obamacare. Therefore, Congress should accomplish the same goals with appropriation riders and other spending limitations that prevent key sections of the bill from being implemented while the courts have held it to be unconstitutional.

KEY INSIGHTS FROM THE FLORIDA COURT DECISION: Two key holdings in the Federal District Court in Florida decision validate the legal strategy to end Obamacare:

1. The individual mandate is unconstitutional.

2. That mandate is such a central aspect of the legislation that it is non-severable from the entire statute. Therefore the court struck down the entire law in addition to the mandate.

Conservative constitutional experts believe there is a very good likelihood that these two key holdings will survive the Obama Administration’s attack in the Supreme Court. For this reason it is critical that opponents of Obamacare in Congress do everything possible to help, not hinder, the legal challenges.

LEGISLATING CONSISTENT WITH THE FLORIDA COURT VICTORY: The Florida case changes the landscape, requiring revising the legislative strategy against Obamacare. Therefore, legislative actions to combat Obamacare should employ the following:

1. TREAT THE STATUTE AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL The House and the Senate should now regard Obamacare as unconstitutional. Rather proposing legislation that would amend the statute or repeal parts of it, they should continue forcing votes on a full repeal. Total repeal is the cleanest, best and least confusing action and then the process of replacing with appropriate measures can be undertaken.

2. ASIDE FROM 1099 REPEAL, CONSIDER A NEW APPROACH TO STOPPING MANDATES The 1099 requirement is so far removed from the heart of Obamacare that it can be repealed without endangering the ongoing court appeals. Other proposed changes, however, strike closer to the core of Obamacare’s statutory scheme, and could derail the current lawsuits. Most especially, repealing the individual mandate would render the major court challenges moot, resulting in the courts immediately dismissing these promising cases.

3. DO NOT PASS PARTIAL REPEALS OR STATE OPT OUTS While proposals like the Graham-Barasso legislation allowing the states to opt-out of Obamacare may have made sense as incremental improvements before the victory in the Florida case, now they pose a risk to the victory won in that case. If a state can withdraw from Obamacare, then courts considering these cases can hold that any “injury” a state suffers is voluntary and avoidable, and thus the state lacks standing to sue.

4. BEWARE OF LIBERAL EFFORTS TO INSERT SEVERABILITY CLAUSE RETROACTIVELY INTO OBAMA CARE This flatly contradicts many liberal Members’ prior public statements declaring the mandate essential to the law.

5. BEST STRATEGY IS TO DEFUND OBAMACARE The safest route for legislatively combating Obamacare is to defund it. Now that the statute has been declared unconstitutional, Congress should use the power of the purse to deny funding for the individual mandate, employer mandates, and writing the 100s of regulations need to impose Obamacare. Such legislation will not in any way jeopardize the ongoing litigation efforts.

The Conservative Action Project, chaired by former Attorney General Edwin Meese, is designed to facilitate conservative leaders working together on behalf of common goals. Participants include the CEO’s of over 100 organizations representing all major elements of the conservative movement–economic, social and national security.

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